Knowledge of the river's power lived
with Mark Twain as it does with Mrs. Addie
Jackson of Arkansas City, Arkansas, a sur
vivor of the record 1927 flood. Twain ques
tioned attempts by the Mississippi River
Commission to control flooding: "... the
Commission might as well bully the comets
312
in their courses and undertake to make them
behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into
right and reasonable conduct." More than
40 years later, the '27 flood inundated Ar
kansas City, then an active river port, with
murky water more than 12 feet deep. Many
of the 2,200 residents waited in Red Cross
National Geographic, September 1975